[FEAT BC Admin]

In this topic area, discussion is about the fight to secure Government funding for your A.B.A. treatment program. It is also the place to talk about your thoughts and ideas about how to establish new Government programs specifically designed for autism treatment.

This is the place to hear input from parents who have fought for funding and won, as well as those who have fought for funding and would like to share their horror stories. There is a tendency to not share success stories once funding is secured. Please fight that tendency. By sharing our experience, we all become stronger.

 

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—-By FEAT BC (Freeman) on Saturday, January 3, 1998 – 03:16 pm:

-Hi everyone!

These are some things to think about in your dealings with government to help you to obtain support for your child’s Autism Treatment Program. These are my personal opinions and do not represent those of FEAT of BC or any other organization.

Many of these observations are based on my personal experiences (and I believe it poetic justice to help every parent avoid being systematically abused by their social worker the way I was).

Good luck to everyone! (Let’s all pull back the curtain on the Wizard of OZ).

Sabrina

 

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How To Fight for Funding for Autism Treatment and Appropriate School Placement

1. Establish a Paper Trail

Always take notes, documenting major points of all conversations with government and school officials.

This includes casual, in person conversations with social workers as well as ALL telephone conversations. All key points of discussion must be written down in your notes including the date and time of the discussion. This includes what was agreed upon, as well as what was not agreed upon.

Then the notes should be used to write a letter recapping the substance and content of the conversation. This letter must then be mailed or faxed to the person with whom you had the conversation. In addition, a copy must be kept in your file (see section on the icci game).

Why?

It is important to formalize the interaction between you and Government officials. In addition, everyone is put on notice that they must closely adhere to their responsibilities, regulations and laws., Furthermore, they must then consider the paper trail you have created. This lets everyone know that the interaction can become public and that any abuses of power and authority can be formally appealed and/or publicized.

In other words, they canit use discretion unfairly under the cloak of secrecy.

2. Submit all Requests in Writing

All your requests for your child must be submitted formally in writing with a copy included in your file and a copy, if necessary, sent to their immediate superiors.

3. Set Deadlines for Action

All formal requests for action must have a reasonable deadline set for that action. If no action or response is received by the deadline you have set (two weeks for example), then you will interpret the lack of response as a formal declination (a formal NO) of your requests.

Why Set Deadlines?

When bureaucrats do not want to do something, they will stall by ignoring you and your request. (As an aside, in the study of the bureaucracy, this is known as ithe power to do nothingi). They can string you along for years. When you have determined that the person you are interacting with is not inclined to help you or is not dealing in good faith, then you must take the initiative and formally label his/her behavior as obstructionist and de facto as a declination (a NO to your requests). This allows you to move to the next level of authority on your timetable to present your case. This takes the power to do nothing away from the bureaucrat with whom you are dealing. Simple stated, a bureaucrat who stalls and does nothing becomes irrelevant (use your invisible spray) and you move on to the next level of authority.

How to icci?

A cc. is a copy of your letter sent to someone other than the person you are writing. You put the cc. at the bottom left-hand corner of your letter followed by 2 spaces and the name of the person or people to whom you want to send a copy of the letter.

Who to icci to?

Sometimes it is best not to icci at all, especially in the early stages of the relationship (for example, your first letter to a social worker requesting assistance). This gives them the opportunity to do the right thing and does not present you as an overly combative person. When you start to run into problems, it is a good idea to send the icci to the 2 immediate superiors of the person you are having problems with. We do not recommend icciing all the way up the chain of command, since you want to give them a chance to solve the problem at the local level.

Why send a icci copy?

The reason for playing the icci game is that you want your interactions with the official to be known to his superior and possibly to other organizations so that 1) their action or inaction becomes a matter of record and 2) the individual knows he is being monitored. This helps minimize abuses of power and authority and helps encourage the official to meet their obligations and do the right thing.

What is the sequence of letters?

Find out the chain of command of the particular bureaucracy you are battling.

TOP

Minister
Deputy Minister
Children’s Ministry’s local region chain of command, all the way down to the District Supervisor
and Social Worker
Contacts can be found at the government directory: http://www.dir.gov.bc.ca/

BOTTOM

Start at the bottom and climb. At the Regional Operating Officer (ROO) level (once you have been declined) you have to decide whether to jump up to the top, threaten and then go to the media, or both. A word of wisdom: DO NOT BLUFF. If you are not willing to go all the way, they will ‘smell’ this. You must be prepared to take it right up to the Minister and beyond.

Documentation from Experts:

In your arsenal to fight for your child, it is wise to get his/her pediatrician and/or psychiatrist to write a letter on your childis behalf. In addition, any other experts who know your child and are sympathetic to what you are trying to do should become involved.

When to hire a lawyer?

If money is not an issue, you can hire a lawyer when you get to the area manager level. Make sure that you have a paper trail so the lawyer has something to work with. Also, have the lawyer give F.E.A.T. of B.C. a call, and we will send him/her information that will help.

If money is an issue (as it is for most of us running autism treatment programs), you might want to hire a lawyer once you have been turned down by the Minister.

How to hire a lawyer?

The type of lawyer needed is a litigator, or trial lawyer. S/he does not need to be an expert in autism, or special needs; s/he needs to be experienced in suing governments, and enjoys being in court. Word of mouth is a good way to find a lawyer.

Topic

[Andrew Kavchak]

Hi Folks,

Well this is interesting. How many of us remember the political debates as Health Minister Monique Begin struggled to get the Canada Health Act (CHA) passed in 1984 as one of the last "triumphs" of Trudeau's government.

It has now been a quarter century of the CHA. And a quarter century of discrimination against those who have autism.

Are the "Canadian Health Coalition" folks friends or foes?
________________________

House of Commons
Hansard, November 3, 2009
Statements by Members

Health Care

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis (Winnipeg North, NDP):

Mr. Speaker, this year marks the 25th anniversary of the Canada Health Act, the foundation of our universal public health care system.

The CHA was passed unanimously by Parliament, a remarkable collaborative achievement with the NDP's Bill Blaikie working closely with the Trudeau Liberal government and health minister Monique Bégin to ensure that quality care would be available to everyone irrespective of their financial status.

Now, 25 years later, the CHA is under attack and the Conservative government is just standing by and doing nothing.

Canadians were outraged this week to learn that private clinics in Toronto and Vancouver were providing a queue-jumping service to the rich for the H1N1 vaccine. This access by wealth is just one more example of creeping privatization and a government that refuses to stop it.

New Democrats, along with the Canadian Health Coalition and concerned citizens everywhere, will continue to fight against two-tier health care and the erosion of the Canada Health Act as we have for 25 years.

Today we celebrate not only the act but Canada's fierce commitment to Tommy Douglas' dream for medicare.
____________________

[Mike & Jean]

I have been asked to comment on and offer my opinion regarding the provincial government’s recent decision to discontinue the “direct payment” option in favour of “invoice payments”. I have delayed responding for three reasons: 1.) I’ve been waiting to see what others have to say, particularly parents of newly diagnosed children, which so far is not much, and, 2.) I was waiting to see if someone else would deliver the inconvenient truth, and, 3.) I wanted to digest the enormous emotional impact of the most recent tragic incidents in each of Edmonton and Toronto.

My opinions are based largely but not solely on experience gained over the last 12 years – advocating for ABA to be included, provided and paid for by our health care system. That is why FEAT of BC existed and why The Medicare for Autism Now Society was created.

By way of background, I am one of the founding directors of FEAT of BC and more recently The Medicare for Autism Now Society. I was also one of the Auton and Hewko litigants and was on the legal steering committees for both cases. In FEAT’s early years, along with Sabrina Freeman, FEAT’s founding executive director, I helped countless families set-up home-based ABA programs. Together, we organized ABA conferences, workshops, seminars, and facilitated parent discussion groups. FEAT of BC created the treatment movement in BC which eventually provided the impetus for the rest of Canada. Recently, as a director of Medicare for Autism Now, I’ve travelled across Canada on three occasions working specifically on initiatives to have legislation passed which would enshrine all our childrens’ treatment under Medicare. I know I have used the word “I” a lot, but, clearly, I have had the “benefit” of an extensive array of experience in the autism advocacy business. I’ve met with bureaucrats at every level, provincial and federal politicians from every political party….I’ve heard all their spin. I’ve learned valuable and sometimes extremely painful lessons. They form the basis for my opinion.

The province’s decision to discontinue the direct funding option is completely unacceptable. It is definitely not in the best interests of our children and their families. If passed, it will be a retrograde step, taking us back to the situation that existed in BC before the Auton decision. I believe it is the first step in dismantling autism treatment funding. Why? ….Because they can. There is NO law which protects this funding. In fact, this funding ONLY exists because of the Auton decision. And it continues to exist solely at the discretion of the faceless, nameless bureaucrats. The fact of the matter is: autism funding can be taken away tomorrow with the stroke of a pen. The government’s preferred “invoice payment option” effectively takes parents and, therefore, children out of the equation. With you out of the loop, others will decide what is best for your child and, eventually, might decide whether your child is making enough “progress” to keep funding treatment..(see what’s happening in Ontario)

Lesson #1 – Never, ever abdicate your parental choice and control to a bureaucrat. Your child’s best interest is never their first priority.

Pre-Auton, there was NO treatment funding at all. Any funding came packaged as: respite, daycare, or babysitting, all of which were wait-listed and means-tested. Some parents did receive substantial amounts of money, if they kept quiet about it, and collaborated with bureaucrats. So – if you “made nice”, didn’t rock the boat, and didn’t talk about treatment – you got money.

Lesson#2 – Never collaborate with bureaucrats. “Collaborate” is bureaucrat-speak for “Do what I say”. It might work for a while for those engaged in it, but it doesn’t last. Eventually, the collaborators are cut off. In the last 12 years of being in this fight up close and personal, the only two things that have made measurable, sustained gains for all have been litigation and focused political action…not making nice. In fact, in my experience making nice actually makes the situation worse.

FEAT of BC was created in 1996 for the single purpose of making science-based autism treatment (ABA) universally available and funded by government. Auton created some treatment funding, but as we see by the provincial government’s recent decision, it’s not protected. Today, lack of complete treatment funding remains the biggest obstacle to meeting the needs of people with autism in Canada. The solution lies in law that ensures our childrens’right to health care. That is why we need Medicare for Autism Now!

The Hewko decision created a precedent for all school districts to do the right thing. Sadly, most are not, but the ones that are demonstrating good faith are only doing so because they don’t want to be the next Hewko. I encourage more parents to read and understand how to use the gains made in the Hewko decision when dealing with difficult school districts.

Lesson #3 -Law can only be useful when enforced.

How should parents respond to the provincial government’s decision?
If our child was much younger and his $20k of treatment funding was in jeopardy; this is what I’d do:
I would begin by organizing a MASSIVE rally at the Premier’s constituency office. I would make sure there were hundreds of parents, family members, friends, colleagues and supporters there…all carrying placards which would say a variety of things, such as: How many more Canadian children need to die before the government acts? In Canada – health care is a right! I would have as many media attend as possible. I would have lots of parents “tell their story”. I would arrange media interviews focusing on the recent deaths in Edmonton, Toronto and Montreal – each a result of government failure to take the morally right and economically sensible action. I would park myself at my MLAs office until they helped. I’d contact my local community newspapers and invite them to join me at the MLAs office for an interview…. and I’d keep doing it for as long as necessary….but that’s just me….

Now is the time to act. Parents must decide if you are going to continue being a supplicant – risking your child’s future to the whims of government bureaucracy, or will you stand-up and, as a citizen and tax payer, demand better?

In Canada, fully-funded, science-based treatment for autism is a reasonable expectation – our children deserve no less. It is their right and should be our solemn obligation.

Lesson#4 – “Those who will not learn history are destined to repeat it.” – Edmund Burke

Time to wake-up, get organized and and get it done!

Jean Lewis,
Medicare for Autism Now!
mfanow@gmail.com

[Mike & Jean]

I have been asked to comment on and offer my opinion regarding the provincial government’s recent decision to discontinue the “direct payment” option in favour of “invoice payments”. I have delayed responding for three reasons: 1.) I’ve been waiting to see what others have to say, particularly parents of newly diagnosed children, which so far is not much, and, 2.) I was waiting to see if someone else would deliver the inconvenient truth, and, 3.) I wanted to digest the enormous emotional impact of the most recent tragic incidents in each of Edmonton and Toronto.

My opinions are based largely but not solely on experience gained over the last 12 years – advocating for ABA to be included, provided and paid for by our health care system. That is why FEAT of BC existed and why The Medicare for Autism Now Society was created.

By way of background, I am one of the founding directors of FEAT of BC and more recently The Medicare for Autism Now Society. I was also one of the Auton and Hewko litigants and was on the legal steering committees for both cases. In FEAT’s early years, along with Sabrina Freeman, FEAT’s founding executive director, I helped countless families set-up home-based ABA programs. Together, we organized ABA conferences, workshops, seminars, and facilitated parent discussion groups. FEAT of BC created the treatment movement in BC which eventually provided the impetus for the rest of Canada. Recently, as a director of Medicare for Autism Now, I’ve travelled across Canada on three occasions working specifically on initiatives to have legislation passed which would enshrine all our childrens’ treatment under Medicare. I know I have used the word “I” a lot, but, clearly, I have had the “benefit” of an extensive array of experience in the autism advocacy business. I’ve met with bureaucrats at every level, provincial and federal politicians from every political party….I’ve heard all their spin. I’ve learned valuable and sometimes extremely painful lessons. They form the basis for my opinion.

The province’s decision to discontinue the direct funding option is completely unacceptable. It is definitely not in the best interests of our children and their families. If passed, it will be a retrograde step, taking us back to the situation that existed in BC before the Auton decision. I believe it is the first step in dismantling autism treatment funding. Why? ….Because they can. There is NO law which protects this funding. In fact, this funding ONLY exists because of the Auton decision. And it continues to exist solely at the discretion of the faceless, nameless bureaucrats. The fact of the matter is: autism funding can be taken away tomorrow with the stroke of a pen. The government’s preferred “invoice payment option” effectively takes parents and, therefore, children out of the equation. With you out of the loop, others will decide what is best for your child and, eventually, might decide whether your child is making enough “progress” to keep funding treatment..(see what’s happening in Ontario)

Lesson #1 – Never, ever abdicate your parental choice and control to a bureaucrat. Your child’s best interest is never their first priority.

Pre-Auton, there was NO treatment funding at all. Any funding came packaged as: respite, daycare, or babysitting, all of which were wait-listed and means-tested. Some parents did receive substantial amounts of money, if they kept quiet about it, and collaborated with bureaucrats. So – if you “made nice”, didn’t rock the boat, and didn’t talk about treatment – you got money.

Lesson#2 – Never collaborate with bureaucrats. “Collaborate” is bureaucrat-speak for “Do what I say”. It might work for a while for those engaged in it, but it doesn’t last. Eventually, the collaborators are cut off. In the last 12 years of being in this fight up close and personal, the only two things that have made measurable, sustained gains for all have been litigation and focused political action…not making nice. In fact, in my experience making nice actually makes the situation worse.

FEAT of BC was created in 1996 for the single purpose of making science-based autism treatment (ABA) universally available and funded by government. Auton created some treatment funding, but as we see by the provincial government’s recent decision, it’s not protected. Today, lack of complete treatment funding remains the biggest obstacle to meeting the needs of people with autism in Canada. The solution lies in law that ensures our childrens’right to health care. That is why we need Medicare for Autism Now!

The Hewko decision created a precedent for all school districts to do the right thing. Sadly, most are not, but the ones that are demonstrating good faith are only doing so because they don’t want to be the next Hewko. I encourage more parents to read and understand how to use the gains made in the Hewko decision when dealing with difficult school districts.

Lesson #3 -Law can only be useful when enforced.

How should parents respond to the provincial government’s decision?
If our child was much younger and his $20k of treatment funding was in jeopardy; this is what I’d do:
I would begin by organizing a MASSIVE rally at the Premier’s constituency office. I would make sure there were hundreds of parents, family members, friends, colleagues and supporters there…all carrying placards which would say a variety of things, such as: How many more Canadian children need to die before the government acts? In Canada – health care is a right! I would have as many media attend as possible. I would have lots of parents “tell their story”. I would arrange media interviews focusing on the recent deaths in Edmonton, Toronto and Montreal – each a result of government failure to take the morally right and economically sensible action. I would park myself at my MLAs office until they helped. I’d contact my local community newspapers and invite them to join me at the MLAs office for an interview…. and I’d keep doing it for as long as necessary….but that’s just me….

Now is the time to act. Parents must decide if you are going to continue being a supplicant – risking your child’s future to the whims of government bureaucracy, or will you stand-up and, as a citizen and tax payer, demand better?

In Canada, fully-funded, science-based treatment for autism is a reasonable expectation – our children deserve no less. It is their right and should be our solemn obligation.

Lesson#4 – “Those who will not learn history are destined to repeat it.” – Edmund Burke

Time to wake-up, get organized and and get it done!

Jean Lewis,
Medicare for Autism Now!
mfanow@gmail.com

[Dione Costanzo]

Hi everyone,

Regarding the online surveys for parents and survey providers to give feedback about Direct Funding and Invoice Payment options:

The results of the survey to date and many of the comments provided were presented to Minister Mary Polak at a meeting yesterday. So far the response is overwhelmingly in favour of keeping Direct Funding in place.

There are many parents and service providers that have not had a chance to complete the survey yet so we will be leaving it online for another week and will also update the Minister with the results at that time.

If you have not already, please take a few moments to complete the online surveys:

Survey for Parents: http://www.rsvme.com/wsb.dll/16389/20091026224502218.htm

Survey for Service Providers: ://http://www.rsvme.com/wsb.dll/16389/20091026225545046.htm
Thank you for sharing your voice!

From

The ABA Support Network…Giving the ABA Community a Voice

Original announcement by the MCFD – September 16, 2009 http://www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news_releases_2009-2013/2009CFD0003-000348.htm

Additional editorial released by MCFD – October 14, 2009 http://www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news_releases_2009-2013/2009CFD0009-000482.htm

[Nancy Walton]

I would like to encourage everyone to not only fill out the survey that Milburn sent out for the ABA Support Network, but also pass the survey on to your therapists and consultants who should do the service providers survey. Our mandate is to give a voice to the ABA community. This is your chance to voice your praise or concern over the elimination of direct funding. Below is the message that was sent out:

Recently the MCFD announced changes to autism funding and programs in BC which included canceling the Direct Funding option and moving all families over to Invoice Payment Option. The ABA Support Network will be participating in a meeting with Minister Mary Polak and we want YOUR input to bring to the table.

PLEASE SELECT ONE OF THE FOLLOWING ONLINE SURVEYS AND COMPLETE BEFORE 9AM ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2009.

Survey for Parents: http://www.rsvme.com/wsb.dll/16389/20091026224502218.htm

Survey for Service Providers:

://http://www.rsvme.com/wsb.dll/16389/20091026225545046.htm
Thank you for sharing your voice!

From

The ABA Support Network…Giving the ABA Community a Voice

Original announcement by the MCFD – September 16, 2009 http://www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news_releases_2009-2013/2009CFD0003-000348.htm

Additional editorial released by MCFD – October 14, 2009

http://www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news_releases_2009-2013/2009CFD0009-000482.htm

[Super Dad]

If you have not looked at the United Nations “Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities”, I encourage you to do so. The “Health” section says States Parties shall:

Provide those health services needed by persons with disabilities specifically because of their disabilities, including early identification and intervention as appropriate, and services designed to minimize and prevent further disabilities…

The Convention was written three years ago, and Canada still refuses to update our laws accordingly. While our government continues to trample on the rights of disabled children, 60 others have made such discrimination illegal in their countries. Many second-world and third-world countries are now ahead of us, including some that have been harshly criticized by Canada for their human rights records.

If you go out and ask Canadians what they think about human rights in our country, all of them will say they are proud of being a global human rights watchdog. I guess that means disabled children are not really human, and “sub-human rights” are a different story.

[Super Dad]

http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/711632

U.S. can teach us how to care for autistic kids

October 18, 2009
Malcolm Stanley

President Barack Obama has introduced a concept into the U.S. health-care debate that "no one should go bankrupt because they got sick."

Most Canadians listen to this rhetoric and smile, secure in the knowledge that for them this issue was solved a long time ago. But for some Canadians this platitude is as relevant as it is to their American cousins. They are going broke in the land of universal health care because someone in their family is sick.

My family and I moved to the United States a year ago, following employment opportunities that promptly vanished like spring flowers in the blizzard of the financial system meltdown.

Left precariously clinging to tenuous health-care insurance, we received an involuntary crash course in the very insecurities of being American that fuel the current U.S. health-care debate. Yet financially, when we balance our chequebook every month, we feel we are more secure and less likely to fail than we were before we left Canada.

How can this be? Well, we have a daughter with autism, a disorder that now strikes at least one in 100 children, seemingly at random. It cannot be tested for or prevented. Autism can prevent children from learning how to communicate, to socialize, to control their own body movements and functions.

Behavioural therapy is the only proven and effective treatment. In Canada, this therapy is provided by a patchwork quilt of provincial programs, all of which are resource constrained.

Rationing of care is the result. In Ontario, where we used to live, children proceed unpredictably from wait list to therapy, sometimes never actually receiving any help at all. Once they reach school age, they are dumped into a system that actually prevents their trained therapists from helping them to learn by barring them from the school building.

In this situation, many Canadian parents empty pocketbooks, mortgage houses and exhaust the kindness of relatives in a scramble to personally provide the behavioural therapy that helps to unlock the minds of their children from their uncooperative bodies. A disproportionate number live below the poverty line. Some go bankrupt.

It is hardly a glowing example of the universal care Canadians so smugly proclaim to their American cousins.

But wait. Now we are the American cousins. What a difference this makes. Before school started, our daughter received a complete program of scientifically validated behavioural therapy, arranged by the state of Pennsylvania, with no mentions of wait lists, benchmarked cut-offs or payment. Now in kindergarten, she receives in-school services and support from therapists with the same training as those who are barred from schools in Ontario.

How can these outcomes be so different for the same child when the clinical diagnosis used as a basis for the provisioning of services is precisely the same? I believe the answer lies in the very basis of our two societies.

Canada is founded on principles of peace, order and good government.

In Ontario, this translates into a benchmarks program that will withdraw therapeutic services from children with autism who do not show a sufficiently timely response to therapy. It is apparently a bureaucratic issue of the proper management of government spending.

If presented with a young Helen Keller, one wonders whether Ontario government-provided therapy services would be withdrawn. Would Keller ever have achieved her eureka moment if, instead of persistently holding Keller's hand under the pump, her therapist had been told to move on to another child with a more visible return on therapeutic investment?

The recent media coming-out party of Carly Fleischmann, who showed mixed indications of therapeutic progress for almost 10 years before flowering into a fearsomely articulate advocate for autistic children, is a local and compelling embodiment of the argument that this management-efficiency approach to providing autism services is misguided.

Counterintuitively, things are different in the United States. A nation founded upon the principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness brings a persistent faith in the individual to the question of how to provide for autistic children. A simple trip of a moving truck has transformed the status of our daughter from that of an inconvenient provincial liability to that of a valued citizen with the right to demand assistance in her essential pursuit of happiness.

In Pennsylvania, her very existence demands that supports be provided, with the full force of the law and court system standing behind her.

These differences in the approach to the treatment of autistic children between our two nations call out the fact that the Canadian system is not the perfectly formed jewel it is often made out to be in comparison with the American system.

Families with children with autism should not go bankrupt. But in Ontario and other Canadian provinces, many do.

By allowing such bankruptcies to occur, policy at both the federal and provincial level reveals a hole in the safety net large enough for entire families to fall through.

It is a hole that America apparently started to patch up some time ago. Canadians have some work to do on their own safety net where it concerns helping and supporting children with autism and their families. There is no time like the present for that work to get started.

Malcolm Stanley advises telecommunications companies on product and service strategies. He currently lives with his family near Philadelphia.

[Barbara Rodrigues]

Hi Tina:

I got my letter last week so maybe see if you get something this week or you could call the unit as suggested.

To answer your question in the meantime – it does state that the funding changes start in October but as your child's birthday comes up then you will be switched over. So if you son or daughter has a birthday in say January – you will still get direct funding until that time – the only difference will be if your child doesn't have a birthday til say June 2010 – and they are under 6 years of age then all kids under 6 who haven't been switched to invoice payment will be switched by April 1, 2010.

My HUGE concern is the fact that MCFD says it will take 30 days AFTER the invoice for the staff to be paid – I will never be able to keep staff this way. I also note from the "invoice" that I can see NO WAY this makes it any more "accountable" vs our direct funding and signed receipts, bank statements and names/addresses and service provided. Absolutely no way other than going back to 'service provided by useless untrained people that hence the 'service providers' where we don't have any 'choice' like we use to have to deal with and fight before. This seems like the start of a BIG step backwards.

Barbara Rodrigues

[Nancy Walton]

Several members of the ABA Support Network have indicated their concern over the elimination of the Direct Funding option. Please e-mail me at walton@abasupportnetwork.com to share how this will affect you. Once we have the "data", we can educate our govt. about our needs.

[Nancy Walton]

Hi Tina,

If you are on the Direct Funding option, you should have recieved a letter about the changes coming up. If you are on Invoice funding, you may not have recieved the letter, because this change does not really affect you.

I would contact the autism funding unit at 1-877-777-3530.

[Author]

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